"violence in (SW) Asia is simple to explain: the Taliban, reconstituted after the defeat of 2001"

The new Taliban

In a swath of territory across Afghanistan and Pakistan, a wild and lawless new state is being born. As warlords struggle for control and Islamic militants pour in, Jason Burke travels deep into the region to reveal hidden forces fuelling a growing conflict in the front line of the 'War on Terror'

Sunday October 14, 2007
The Observer

The bomb was far from the biggest seen on the North-West Frontier but it did its job well. Placed in a water cooler, it ripped through the Nishtar Abad music market, sending shards of glass and splintered CDs in all directions. 'Miraculously, no one was killed,' said Mohammed Azam, who was shopping for presents for the Muslim holiday of Eid this weekend. Twenty people were injured, three seriously, and a dozen shops gutted.

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The Pakistan Taliban's campaigns go way beyond bombing music shops. Fifty miles south of Peshawar last week, a full-scale pitched battle, complete with air strikes and artillery barrages, raged between the Pakistani army and local and international militants dug into fortified positions in remote tribal villages. By the time a fragile calm had settled on the rocky hills, scattered palm trees and desiccated fields of Mir Ali, 50 soldiers, a 100 or so militants and around 100 civilians had died. Given the inaccessibility of the battlefield and the conflicting claims of the military and their opponents, accurate casualty figures are simply not available.

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The weekend before had seen an American soldier and a handful of Afghans killed in Kabul; last Monday saw the latest in a spate of suicide bombings attributed to the Taliban in Afghanistan when a bicycle bomber hit a convoy of Nato troops moving through the British-held town of Lashkar Gah, injuring two civilians. Towards the end of the week, around 100 Taliban stormed a remote police post close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, sparking lengthy exchanges that left 10 militants and a police officer dead. An Australian died when his armoured vehicle was hit by a massive remote-detonated mine, the 192nd coalition soldier killed this year in Afghanistan.

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For some, the ongoing violence in south-west Asia is simple to explain: the Taliban, reconstituted after the defeat of 2001, and with the help of al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Yahya al-Libi, are battling their way back to power in Afghanistan and, perhaps worse, fast making progress towards seizing power in nuclear-capable Pakistan.

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